The door
bounced against Billy’s body, lying inert on the staircase.
They traded
several fleeting, nervous glances.
‘He moved,’
said Gavin, laughing. ‘Fucker moved.’
Sean scooted
forward and inched the door all the way open, Gavin aiming the gun into the
gloom. There was no trail of blood going
up the steps. The blood on Billy’s
t-shirt and jeans was dried, almost as black as they were. A layer of crust. Moving sidewise along the far wall, gun up,
Gavin moved down the staircase.
Billy did
not look like he was sleeping. He was
still pale, pale like someone who had bled to death, and there was none of the
rise and fall, the subtle vitality the living had even when at rest. The thing on the staircase may as well have
been a chair. But it was sprawled out
and curled up on one side, one arm above its head, the other clutched against
its chest, as if holding an invisible blanket or stuffed animal. Like Billy was trying to get comfortable as
sleep took him. Gavin kicked at it, with
his foot.
It fell over
onto its back and slid down the stairs, making a thuddering sound.
‘Fuck! Shit!
Fuck!’ cried Sean, running halfway down the stairs, bat aloft.
‘It’s all
right! It’s all right!’ Gavin followed
after him. Stopping just above the body,
he turned and looked up. Blinds or no
blinds, sunlight was streaming down the steps through the open doorway, down
into the basement.
‘No smoke,’
said Sean, cluing in. ‘Nothing is burning.’
Gavin
shrugged. He crouched down and gently
placed the barrel against Billy’s
lips. Parted them. Moved it up, then down and around. Billy’s teeth were cleaner and whiter then
they had ever been, not yellow at all, and his canines looked like they had
been replaced with a wolf’s.
Sean
gasped. Gavin pulled up, fell against
the wall and started laughing, nervous, high, giddy.
‘Fuck.’ Sean said it matter-of-factly. ‘Fuck.
Fuck. Fuck.’
‘Vampire,’
said Gavin, laughing between tears. ‘Billy’s a fucking vampire.’
‘I was
really hoping he’d turn out to just be a zombie,’ said Sean.
‘Well, what
do we do with him?’ said Gavin.
‘You mean,
what do we do with a vampire?’
‘Do you
think he can hear us?’
Gavin looked
at Sean carefully. ‘Hear us?’
‘Like, he’s
paralyzed, but has vampire senses, and knows what’s going on around him.’
Gavin gave a
kind of oh shit look. Sean reached down
and grasped the big hunting knife still sticking out of Billy’s chest. ‘Billy!
I’m taking the knife out, OK?
Just like you asked.’ He
yanked. The knife came free with a crack
and a tear, but the bleeding didn’t start up again. The top six inches of the blade were coated
in an enamel of dried blood. Sean
motioned with his head up the stairs.
‘Just sit tight, Billy, we’ll be back.’
‘Well, the
obvious question is, should we stake him?’ asked Gavin, after they had gone into
the living room, locking the door behind them.
‘Well,
Billy’s our friend, vampire or not, and maybe we should hear what he has to say
first.’
‘Has to say
first!? What if he has vampire mind powers?’
‘What if
staking doesn’t work?’
Gavin
thought for a moment. ‘Shit.’
‘I mean, who
knows what he’s capable of.’
‘Yeah, yeah. I see where you’re coming from. Staking might just make him angry. And who knows what would happen if we tried
cutting his head off.’
‘Let’s hear
what he has to say first.’
So Sean went
into his room and got a pair of old handcuffs, and they went back down, carried
Billy over to the wall and handcuffed him to a thick length of pipe. It was hard work, carrying him over. Billy was bigger than them. Sean was about 5’7”, and Gavin was maybe
5’10” standing straight, but Billy had been 6’3”. It was a lanky 6’3”, but also a wiry and lean
one.
After
locking the door again, they both left the house, wanting out of there for some
of the daylight hours.
Gavin rode the trains, dealt pot, stopped off
in an authentic Chinese joint down the street from some high-rises, walked
along Lake Michigan.
Sean went to
a diner, had breakfast and coffee, took in a matinee, then made a loop of his
drug contacts, chatting, buying, selling, asking about Damien. How’s Damien doing? He all right?
He square? Haven’t heard much
about him lately. Damien’s Damien. Oh,
yeah, he fine. Square, why wouldn’t he
be square, man, unless you mean, like, clean.
What’s there to hear? Then he went to a polish butcher shop, bought
a pound of spare ribs and asked for a quart of pig’s blood.
